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  “Fire.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Fire will kill them.”

  “Well ... yes. Of course. But what are you driving at, Cal? If somebody becomes infected with this. . . name it, it’s unknown . . . are you going to burn them at the stake?”

  “It might come to that, Bob.”

  Doctor Robert Jenkins stared open-mouthed at his friend, shocked into silence by such a totally unprofessional statement.

  * * *

  Dee made sure Dingo had done his business before locking him in the house. He had plenty of food and water and if for some reason the house caught on fire, he could exit through one of the open windows. But that was about the only condition that would force him to leave when he had been told to guard and stay.

  With Dee driving, Carl and Dee rode into town. Carl clicked on the radio. Dee punched the button that would switch it over to the local station and Carl listened for fifteen minutes before turning the volume down.

  “Can you understand that crap?” Dee asked.

  “Not much of it. And by the way, I haven’t heard any familiar groups. But I know what they’re singing about. I’ve infiltrated some satanistic cells while getting kids back to their parents. We do a lot of what is known as coven-busting. Then we take the kids to deprogrammers. Sometimes it works and we can get them back to reality. Many times—most times—it doesn’t.”

  “I don’t know much about cults or covens.” She pointed to the radio. “What are they singing about?”

  “Self-mutilation, assault, suicide, drugs, murder, sex; anti-establishment and anti-social rebellion against parents, society, education, and law and order. Some of the music tries to promote the ideals of absolute freedom, irresponsibility, and violence—and unfortunately, in many cases succeeds.” Carl smiled faintly. “I don’t mean to sound preachy, Dee, but since I’m still fairly young, the Richland Agency has used me quite often to infiltrate covens. I’ve become a reluctant expert on certain more aggressive types of music, and the satanic cults that have sprung up all over the nation.”

  “It certainly sounds like you have. But surely there aren’t that many of them.”

  “The last statistics we have are from 1987. They show approximately one hundred and forty-five thousand covens in all fifty states. That’s up from ten thousand covens in 1946; I believe that was the first year any really definite study was done.”

  “One hundred and forty-five thousand covens!” Dee said, shock evident in her tone.

  “Yes. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?”

  “Is anything being done about it?”

  “Damn little, I’m afraid. And that only serves to point out the callousness that judges and law-enforcement people hold toward the treatment of animals. When the police do make an effort to arrest cult members for torturing and sacrificing animals, the judges slap them with a small fine and turn them loose. The music can’t be stopped because it comes under the protection of the First Amendment—freedom of speech. The cults themselves are protected under the same amendment—freedom of religion. Talk about a macabre joke, that’s it.”

  “If I’m correctly reading between the lines, Carl, what you’re saying is that there could be a large cult, coven, right here in Reeves County which is planning to, or which is already assisting the horror we’re facing.”

  “That is correct.”

  * * *

  Mike was clearly exhausted as he sat down wearily in the chief deputy’s office. “I got it, Chief. But boy, if I’m ever caught, I’m lookin’ at a long prison term.”

  “That information will be destroyed just as soon as me and a few other people get a chance to review it. What do you have, Mike?”

  “The crew chief and the men who worked with him in diverting the power that day over in Ruger County are all dead. One committed suicide, one was killed in a car accident, one fell from the bucket of a cherry picker, and another had a heart attack. Of the government people involved, I can’t find any who are still alive. Virginia state police strongly suspect Linda Crowley—she adopted the last name of Aleister Crowley, who was a leading advocate of satanism back around the turn of the century—is now the leader of a satanic cult based in Ruger County. And get this: a cult with cells all over the state. There is a lot more, but those are the high points. Or low points, depending on how you want to look at it.”

  Mike laid the computer printouts on Jim’s desk.

  “Thank you, Mike. Take the next twenty-four off. I understand you and Judy are goin’ out to Miss Conners’s house this evenin’.”

  “Yes, sir. Carl’s cooking steaks.”

  “You’re going to be awful close to the source out yonder. You be careful, boy.”

  Jim sat for a half hour, digesting the material on the printouts. It left him with a sour taste in his mouth and a dirty feeling generally. He locked the papers up in his office safe and walked outside just in time to see Carl and Dee drive past the building. The young man, as usual, appeared unconcerned. Dee looked worried. They did not see Jim and drove on past.

  Jim got in his county unit and drove over to Doctor Bartlett’s office.

  He was introduced to Robert Jenkins and, over coffee, briefed the men on what Mike had told him.

  Jenkins, already shaken by what he had seen that day, just about came unglued at Jim’s words.

  “Are you telling me that Satan, the Devil, is behind all this?” he asked, his voice shrill.

  “That’s what I’m tellin’ you, Doc,” Jim calmly replied.

  Jenkins’s mouth dropped open and he slumped back in his chair.

  “I just thought of something,” Cal said. “Jim, have you noticed many of the kids around town have started wearing Nazi paraphernalia? Doesn’t that fit in with some satanic cults?”

  “I got to admit that I stopped payin’ attention to what kids wear a long time ago. No, I hadn’t noticed. But you’re right about it fittin’ in. And here’s something else: accordin’ to what we come up with”—he had not mentioned Mike’s name, or his computer hacking, and had no intention of doing so—“Carl Garrett is some sort of expert about cults and covens and so forth.”

  “Who is Carl Garrett?” Jenkins had found his voice.

  Jim brought the man up to date on Carl.

  “I thought that tragedy over in Ruger County was caused by some sort of explosion,” Jenkins said. “Some sort of government mishap.”

  “It was a government fuck-up was what it was,” Jim told him, startling Cal because Jim almost never used hard profanity. “And then they just turned around and walked away from it, all the while knowin’ that some of those people over yonder had changed sides—whether it was willingly or unwillingly don’t make no difference. Fact is, they walked off and left them to fend for themselves. Maybe they had a reason; I don’t know. I do know—least the way I feel right now—I don’t want no government people in on what’s happenin’ here.”

  “How would you keep them out if they decided to come in?” Cal asked.

  “Well, you couldn’t—”

  The phone rang, interrupting Jim. Cal picked it up and spoke briefly. He turned to the chief deputy.

  “Carl Garrett and Miss Conners are on the way over here. I gave them the okay.”

  “Fine with me.” He pointed to the littered worktable. “What’s all that stuff?”

  “Why don’t we wait until this Garrett person gets here,” Bob suggested. “Then we won’t have to duplicate our efforts.” The doctor cut his eyes to the shattered drawer of the cooler across the big room. He sighed and shook his head. “I wish one of you would tell me this is all a great big practical joke.”

  “Don’t nobody wish we could do that anymore than me,” Jim told him. “After you brief us on what you’ve found about that green crap and the other stuff, I want to call a meeting of a few of the town’s leaders—so to speak. Max, Mayor Purdy, the other doctors—and, I guess, Sheriff Rodale. I’ve finally got it through my head that we’re up agin the supernatur
al here.” Jenkins stirred at that but offered no rebuttal. “As for the preachers in this town, I don’t know whether to include them or not. I do know I don’t want none of them Holy Rollers in here. They’d get to jibber-jabberin’, and talkin’ in tongues, and we never would get nothin’ done. And them snake-handlers up on the ridges can damn well stay up there.” He sighed. “As far as my preacher goes . . . well, he’s a good man and I like him. But he ain’t gonna buy none of this here. That just ain’t the way we’re supposed to think. But I can’t deny what I’ve seen and heard with my own eyes and ears.” He shook his head and said sorrowfully, “First time in my whole en-tar life I ever wished a Catholic priest would show up.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference what faith you are,” Carl said from the doorway. “Father Denier told me that. One just has to believe that Satan lives and walks the earth.” Carl pointed to the numerous slides and cultures on the worktable. “They’re growing, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Jenkins told him. “How did you know that?”

  “Fire is the only thing that will kill them. Once a human being is infected, there is no cure. You can’t kill the Devil. But fire will stop his minions and the filth they spread. Think about it.”

  Jim was the first to speak. “They come from the Pits.”

  “That’s right. Now gather your community leaders. Here is as good a spot as any, I suppose.”

  “How . . . did you know I was going to do that?” Jim asked, suspicion in his voice.

  “Just a guess, Jim.”

  But the hard-shell Baptist in Jim surfaced, and for a moment he looked at Carl as if the young man had suddenly grown horns and a tail.

  Cal was the first to laugh at the man’s expression and the laughter spread, snapping the tension like a dry forest twig under a work boot. Cal coughed, cleared his throat, and wiped his eyes. “Jim, the expression on your face was priceless.”

  Red-faced, the chief deputy had to join in the laughter. When his laughter had changed to a chuckle, he shook his head and said, “I tell y’all something. I growed up over yonder on the ridges. Went to one of them little country hellfire-and-brimstone-spoutin’ Baptist churches. Lay preachers, mostly. Makes a man some suspicious. Old habits die hard, I reckon.”

  “Everybody enjoy the laughter,” Carl said, dampening the mood. “Because in just a few days, I assure you, there will be precious little to laugh about.”

  Chapter 11

  “Hell’s bells!” Sheriff Rodale jumped up, flapped his arms, and hollered, even before Jim was half finished. “Call the damn FBI! Git the governor on the phone and call out the National Guard!”

  “Oh, sit down!” Mayor Purdy told him. “You’re actin’ like a fool!”

  Rodale sat.

  Doctor Perry stood up. “Jim, do you expect us to believe all this nonsense you’ve been spouting? I for one don’t believe a word of it.”

  Carl cut his eyes and looked at the man. “Believe it, Doctor.”

  “Nonsense!” Perry puffed.

  “You’ll believe it after you’ve seen those slides,” Cal said, more than a slight edge to his voice. “Providing you know the difference between DNA and RNA, that is.”

  “Not to mention ATP and AMP,” Jenkins added, taking a dislike to the young Perry.

  Most of those in the room did not have any idea what the doctors were talking about. That did not prevent them from picking up on the sarcasm in the voices.

  Cal then proceeded to tell the additional doctors about the strange cells they had found.

  Perry waved that off with a curt slash of his hand. “So what?” he challenged. “Certainly I don’t have to remind you experts about certain human cancerous cervical cells that have been living in laboratories around the world for almost forty years.”

  “That’s under sterile lab conditions,” Bob told the man, while the others listened and wondered what the hell was going on. “Those cells are fed and the culture mediums closely monitored and changed. When they become too crowded with rapidly dividing cells, the populations are divided and placed in new containers.” He pointed to the worktable. “Look over there, doctor. Those cells have been exposed to air for hours. They’re thriving and growing and multiplying. You can’t compare cells living under sterile lab conditions with what is happening here. There is absolutely no comparison.”

  With a sneer on his lips, Perry walked to the table and stuck a slide in place and studied the cell life under a microscope. After a moment, he raised his head, a very confused look on his face.

  “Holy shit!”

  “Not terribly professional,” Jenkins said. “But at least it’s concise.”

  Doctor Nelson Loring walked to the table and took a look. His face drained of color. He turned to face the group and said, “These are neither animal nor human.”

  “No kidding,” Jenkins said.

  Scratch. Purr.

  “What the hell was that?” Perry asked, his voice loud in the suddenly silent room.

  “A reminder from the other side of life that we are not alone,” Carl told him.

  “And what does that mean?” Nelson asked.

  “It means that the Devil is walkin’ amongst us,” Jim said. “Or them that serve him.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Perry announced. “That’s all superstitious nonsense.”

  A foul odor filled the room, the stench that of burning sulfur. A wind sprang from out of the stench, blowing papers around the room and knocking off several coffee cups, shattering them on the floor.

  Hollow laughter echoed around the room.

  Ned Rodale dropped to his knees, his hands clutched before him, and started praying while Jim looked at him, disgust in his eyes and on his face. “The many-headed beast is upon us!” Ned hollered. “Oh, Lordy! We’re doomed to the fiery pits.”

  “Idiot!” Wilber Purdy muttered.

  A rock was thrown through the window. It bounced off a wall and came to rest on the floor. Max grabbed a stool and stood on it, enabling him to look out one of the high-set security windows. Kids,” he said. “Val Malone and Nick Jamison. Half a dozen others down there on the corner. They’re getting in their cars, pulling out.”

  “Go arrest them heathen, Jim!” Rodale yelled, jumping to his feet.

  “On what charge? Didn’t none of us see them throw the rock. Settle down, Ned.”

  Scratch. Purr.

  Rodale ran to the door and jerked it open, looking frantically up and down the corridor. There was nothing to be seen.

  “Come out and fight like a man, goddamn you!” the sheriff squalled. “Show yourself, you cowardly bastards!”

  Laughter greeted the words. But this time the laughter was heavy and dark-tinged.

  Rodale was shaking so much it appeared he might fall down.

  The phone rang. Cal picked it up and listened for a moment. He slowly replaced the receiver. “Very obscene message,” he told the group. “From a girl. Teenager, I would say. She was, ah, very explicit as to what was going to happen to all of us.”

  “Did you recognize the voice?” Max asked.

  Cal shook his head. “No. There was some rather violent type of music in the background.”

  The mayor said, “Other than the common usage, what do the letters AC/DC mean. I found that chalked on the sidewalk in front of my house this morning.”

  “Anti-Christ, Devil-Child,” Carl told him. “There are several dozen symbols that satanists use. ZOSO refers to the three-headed dog that guards the gates to Hell. The letter S means Satan/stoner. FFF is Anti-Christ, as is 666.” Carl now had their full attention, and with several, the looks were frightened. “NATAS is Satan reversed. 6, 9, and 13 are common occult numbers. Horns and tail added to any letter denotes Satan worship. A lightning bolt means heaven-to-hell strength. There are petagrams and hexagram circles. A circle within a circle means infinity-containment, control of evil, power. A star and a quarter moon is Lucifer/morning star. The swastika is very common among Satan worshippers.” />
  “What the hell do we do?” Max asked. “Round up all the kids in town?”

  “It isn’t just the kids,” Carl told him. “There are just as many adults involved as kids. Although kids are the most violent. Members of covens come from all walks of life. . . .”

  “You tell them, fuck-head!” a voice boomed from an invisible source.

  Rodale was now not the only one in the room who was very badly frightened.

  Carl forced himself to ignore the voice and to show no fear. “All social and economic levels, and all ethnic groups . . .”

  “Blah, blah, blah!” the voice boomed. Heavy and ominous and dripping with evil.

  “The philosophy of satanists is this: A person lives only for today and should indulge in all life’s good feelings. Satanism condones any type of sexual activity which properly satisfies the individual desires, be it heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual.”

  “Get lots of pussy and ass!” the voice cracked like thunder. “Kill and torture and fuck. Kill and torture and fuck!” Wild laughter followed, the sound so loud it rattled cups and glassware in the room.

  Then, as abruptly as it began, the voice stopped, leaving the room in silence.

  “You will find within the cults and covens of the satanic worshippers”—Carl didn’t let up or change his tone—“the criminal psychopath or sociopath. They are unable to experience guilt or remorse, they cannot form lasting relationships, they tend to seek high levels of thrills and excitement....”

  Outside, a car drove by, the radio playing a wild, almost unintelligible music, the speakers pushed to the max, the violent sounds slamming through the broken windows of the room.

  “These people are very impulsive with a lack of conscience. Their behavior is very aggressive and dangerous, but they can show a great deal of superficial charm and intelligence. They are unreliable, irresponsible, pathological liars. Their behavior is anti-social with a lack of values. They torture and kill dumb animals and their cruelty is limitless. Their sexual behavior is casual and excessive. They have, for the most part, no life plan, except perhaps to fail at everything. Anyone who joins these groups is a born loser.”